Ice for the people in Chongqing

August 17, 2006 - Danwei Noon Report, a daily roundup of new and old media coverage about China, from Chinese and English sources.

Illegal power plants
Xinhua's top strory on the Chinese website today is about the governmen cracking down on illegal power stations in the wake of an accident that caused six deaths at an unauthorized power plant in Inner Mongolia last year (link - Chinese, link - English).

45℃ in Chongqing!
Stop the presses, Xinhua has just changed their top story (11:45) to a report about the scorching weather in Chongqing yesterday, where the temperature reached 44.5 ℃ (link)

China's comment posting culture and Li Yinhe
The China Media project has publised an article titled China's "comment posting culture", free speech and the Li Yinhe controversy. Excerpt:

On July 21 Li Yinhe, a sociologist and well-known expert on sex and gender (who proposed for a third time this year that gay marriage be legalized in China), presented a talk in Nanjing in which she reportedly discussed everything from one-night stands to incest. Nanjing's Jinling Evening News ran what most now agree was a news report with a negative spin on July 23, and suggested Li had said in her talk that she had a "desire for multiple romantic relationships" (Li later told Y Weekend her words had been taken out of context, that she was expressing not a personal wish but rather a hope for social diversity)...

...China Youth Daily called the Li Yinhe controversy and others like it examples of "comment posting culture", in which not only web users but also other print media follow a news topic with intensity and make their views known. "Along with the development of the Internet, a kind of 'comment posting culture' (跟帖文化) has become popular", the newspaper wrote on August 6. "It already exists on more than just the web, expanding to print media and with an influence not to be overlooked" (link))

Internet video restrictions: SARFT is watching your Youtube!
Jane Macartney has more on the new SARFT moves to control Internet video. Scary quote:

Liu Jianhui, a censorship official at SARFT, said: “SARFT has established a quite advanced Internet audio-visual monitoring centre and plans to set up monitoring centres in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. Connected with each province, a timely, effective monitoring system will be formed (link)."

Is that just bluster?

For a Chinese journalist's take on this story, have a look at Wang Xiaofeng's essay, translated on Danwei yesterday (link).

The Wall Street Journal has an article on it which quotes Youtube clone Uusee.com business development director Wan Zhihua: "No one knows what the regulation will be like". Another view point from the article, which your correspondent agrees with:

Analyst Duncan Clark, of telecommunications-research firm BDA China Ltd., said the potential regulations may be part of a turf battle between different parts of the government. Sarft, which typically controls TV and film, may be trying "to extend offline controls to online media," he said (link - subscription required)

Xinhua has republished a China Daily article about the SARFT moves here, which does actually quote some critical voices. But it ends off with a hilarious quote that appears to be written without irony:

Internet reactions were mixed: a netizen called Geshoumojie wrote on his blog that such a rule is unnecessary.

"If this regulation is released, where should netizens share their creations? Will the public still have the right to self-entertainment?" he said.

"Some producers of these clips may think it is great fun but they do not realize the clips damage the core values of our society," said Guo Songmin in an article published by China Youth Daily (link).

Stay away from Youtube kids. Go watch some healthy prime time TV!

Shanghai and prime time ban on foreign cartoons
From a Xinhua article titled Shanghai prepares for ban on cartoons:

Programming directors at the station are currently drafting up a new schedule for September, which should be released in the next few days, said Lin Lan, an official with Toonmax TV.

The overseas cartoons will likely be replaced with domestic classics such as "Monkey King - Uproar in Heaven" and "The Calabash Boys" among other shows.

Those shows typically don't draw as large an audience as Japanese cartoons, particularly "The Prince of Tennis," the channel's biggest hit (link).

Ah me.